


i'll be your levy

by haloud



Series: open up my eager eyes [8]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Nebulous Well-Adjusted Future, Polyamory, communication is key, shameless flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 04:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: A small accident with some Project Shepherd files leads to Kyle getting hurt and everyone sorting through the aftermath.





	i'll be your levy

**Author's Note:**

> title comes once more from always by panic at the disco
> 
> this fic is not for redistribution without express permission.

Michael slams the door of his truck and vaults up the stairs to the cabin in one long leap, opening the door with his powers in the same instant. He tries to shout a greeting into the house, but the sound is strangled in his panicked throat—he tries again and manages a half-coherent “Hey!”

The cabin is unlit and empty-looking, and Michael breathes deep through the swarm of terrible thoughts—that they never made it home at all, that they had to go to the hospital anyway—that Kyle could be lingering, near death, while Michael is wasting his time shouting into an empty house. But--both cars are outside, and there’s no outward sign of a struggle, and it hasn’t been that long since he talked to Alex, so they must be fine, they’re definitely--

“In here,” Alex calls back, and his voice is short and subdued and Michael _would _hold on to his worry and his fear, if his knees weren’t already weak with relief just from hearing him at all. Stumbling the first few steps, he jogs into the hall, not even stopping to take his shoes off at the door like has become his habit, and—and Alex is there, leaning slumped against the wall with his face too pale and shuttered and his eyes shadowed, but _there. _Michael seizes him into a tight hug without stopping, without slowing down at all, just grabbing a fistful of Alex’s t-shirt and yanking him in, holding him close. Just feeling Alex in his arms alive and breathing is enough to soothe all the jagged edges pressing into his skin from the inside--if he’s here, everything _must _be okay, even if Michael hasn’t laid eyes on Kyle yet. And Alex doesn’t relax, not quite, but he does sink in to Michael, pressing his forehead to the side of Michael’s neck and letting himself be held.

“What happened?” The words are breathless; Michael hasn’t taken in a proper breath since Alex called him--voice garbled over the bad connection--to say that something went wrong at the bunker and Kyle had been caught up in it.

“I can’t--an accident. You talk to him. I have to get out of here.” Alex pulls out of Michael’s arms and squeezes past him in the narrow hallway and, despite the tension in his voice, in his entire body, he still brushes his hand affirmingly over Michael’s shoulder before hurrying around the corner. A second later, the door slams shut behind him, and the muscles of Michael’s back jump at the sound. He takes a deep breath, pressing his shoulders against the cool wood of the wall, before pushing off and heading the opposite way to the bedroom.

Inside, Kyle sits on the bed, his bag open beside him, a bottle of whiskey Michael’s been saving rested against his thigh. On his other side is a plastic tray that holds, neatly separated and all soaked in blood—a wad of used gauze, a pair of tweezers, and a little pile of glass shards. The injury is nothing like Michael had feared, nothing like what had him pressing his lips cold and white together to keep from puking, imagining a hundred gory scenarios. All in all, all things considered, it isn’t even actually that bad, though granted Michael is only seeing it now that Kyle’s cleaned it up. Still, Michael winces at the sight, his stomach turning over slowly as he takes in the lacerations decorating Kyle’s bicep and shoulder, a dozen or so cuts, several of them short but deep-looking.

Leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved in his pockets, trying to stay casual, Michael says, “You know we eat off that thing sometimes, right?” He jerks his chin at the tray, which clearly came from the cabinet under their sink instead of, y’know, the hospital, or somewhere else that keeps trays for bloody things instead of dishes.

“I’ll buy us a new one,” Kyle snaps back. He examines his shoulder in the mirror, grits his teeth, and picks up the tweezers again, saying, “Alex had a conniption when I tried to do this in the car or in the sitting room, so--”

Michael snorts. “And here I was thinking you were Mr. Proper Procedure. Liz has had a bad influence on you, Doc.”

“Liz? _Liz _has had a bad influence on me? I caught you--” Kyle’s voice breaks off on a hiss as he picks another shard out of his shoulder. “--I caught you with a two-inch gash on your leg from catching it on some car part or whatever--” He glares fiercely up at Michael “--and when I yelled at you about it you said, and I quote, ‘_It’s just a cramp, I’ll walk it off.’ _To say _nothing _about how I’d rather go through eight hundred more years of school and turn into an _oral _surgeon to cut out people’s _teeth _for a living than pull Alex’s to get him to let me look at his leg once in a goddamn blue moon--”

“Okay, okay. Down, boy. I get it: we are, in fact, the worst.”

Kyle mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “_you’re damn right_” as he takes a swig of the whiskey Michael’s been saving for a special occasion.

“Me ‘n Alex aside though, I have to say, the whole field surgery thing is a weird look for you. Bit too rugged, if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Kyle snarks, and as he checks himself in the mirror again he seems satisfied this time, putting the tweezers aside in favor of the gauze, which he unrolls with practiced ease.

Those long fingers work so confidently, so steadily, Michael is mesmerized by every minute motion, his tongue touched unconsciously to his lower lip. With a distracted air, he says, “Do I at least get to watch you sew yourself up with dental floss?”

“Why are you trying to provoke me _now, _of all times, Guerin?”

“Because you’re pissed off--not just hurt pissed, but real pissed. And I don’t think fucking it out’s gonna work as well with you hurt, so fighting’s the next best thing.”

Rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, Kyle takes another slug of whiskey. “Your honesty is truly refreshing, but we could always give open and mature communication a shot, just this once.”

“Maybe I was saving that one for your birthday.”

“Will you just get over here and hold this pad for me while I finish wrapping it.”

Michael follows orders without snarking back--he’s grateful, even, even though as a rule he talks back when it’s anyone but Alex telling him what to do. He lopes the few feet from the door to the bed--a bed big enough for the three of them doesn’t exactly leave much bedroom floor space in the cabin’s tiny master. One of these days the other two will actually let him dig his hands into a full remodel of this place--more space, more accessibility, the whole nine yards, but for now he’s just fine squeezing people into his personal space. He settles down next to Kyle, fingers itching to grab at him, to touch him, to check for any other hurts. There’s a grayish tinge to his skin now that Michael sees him up close, and he buzzes to fix it, to heal him, to do _something. _

“Look, I’m not _pissed, _exactly,” Kyle says as Michael fingers the rough fibers under his fingers and gently holds them in place. “Press harder than that. Good. I’m just…”

“Pissed?”

“No.” 

He’s quiet for a while, and Michael sinks in to the almost meditative rasp of tape and gauze as Kyle wraps the pad in place, secures it remarkably neatly for having done it on himself, and starts packing his things away.

Finally, he says, “Okay, I was a little pissed at first.”

“Is this where I get to say I told you so?”

Kyle shoots him a withering look and ignores him. “Did Alex tell you what happened?”

Michael shakes his head, so Kyle continues:

“Project Shepherd’s filing system sucks. You’d think a bunch of tight-assed military dicks would be able to handle simple cataloguing, but apparently not. Alex immediately put a system in place--”

“--Because of course he did--” They chorus.

“--But you can hardly turn around down there without breaking your foot on a filing cabinet stuffed into a corner full of even _more _documents. And it’s not always just documents, either.”

“Alex has brought me a couple little things--gadgets, formulas, bits of odd crystals, that sort of stuff. It’s been a while, though. And not all of it was alien to begin with.”

“Well, we unearthed another box today. It was mostly boring--meeting minutes, personnel files. But at the bottom, there was this tiny flask. We were already wearing gloves--hell, I don’t know, maybe that was the problem--but the second Alex touched it, it just exploded everywhere.”

Michael sucks in a pained breath. Finally, finally, he can’t hold himself back anymore, and he reaches out to curl his hand around Kyle’s hip, just to make sure he doesn’t disappear right from under him.

“Whatever was inside evaporated immediately--no mist, no odor, nothing. All we can do is hope we didn’t aspirate something deadly, but Alex didn’t think that was much of a risk, and as much as it pains me it’s either defer to him on this one or drive myself crazy with fear I’m about to end up like my dad.” 

He takes another, slightly frantic gulp of whiskey, and Michael’s hand unclenches from his hip compulsively; he reaches out again, and then again, never quite touching him, not quite sure where he’s allowed. Kyle still hasn’t looked at him.

Kyle smiles wryly and says, “My first instinct was to go to the hospital. Of course, yeah? Some glass stuck in me, that’s not impossible to convince somebody it was an accident. But what if there was something detectable on the shards--something alien? And what if I did start having a reaction to what was inside the flask while we were there, something that could snowball into a condition that would bring the remnants of the old Shepherd back to town? We can’t risk it. So...yeah, I was a little pissed at first.”

“I understand, Doc.” Michael tries to smirk; he searches for any joke or barb he’s got left to lighten the mood, but none of them really seem to fit anymore. None of them are light enough to make it out through the swollen burn in his throat. “You’ve got a right to be pissed when freaky alien shit is death-of-a-thousand-cuts-ing you in the middle of boring-ass paperwork,” he manages, but the words fall flat in the space between them. They’re sitting so close the air should be charged with _something, _heat, lust, anger, anything, but the energy is all off between them, sick and skimming over Michael’s senses unevenly instead of the dancing electricity he’s used to.

“I know what you’re thinking, and of course I don’t blame you for any of this. _Any _of it--I mean that. It’s not your fault that you’re an alien, and it’s not your fault that forces outside any of our control have a problem with that, or want to take advantage of it, or whatever. It’s not even the danger, really.” Kyle shakes his head, still not looking Michael in the eye. 

Michael does him the courtesy of looking away himself, if this is the conversation they’re having. All that stuff about not blaming him--it might be a little easier to stomach, a little gentler to believe, if Kyle would just _look _at him. “It wouldn’t be wrong,” he says, keeping his voice steady in spite of the way he wants to shake, “if it was too much. You didn’t sign up for any of this, not really. And now that you’ve been hurt--”

“I’ve already been hurt in the middle of all this, remember, and it was by a human, not an alien. And anyway, I kind of did. Sign up for this. I knew about your weird alien mojo long before I let you take me home that night at the Pony, Guerin. I could have walked away.”

“You didn’t.”

“That’s right. I didn’t. And I’m not going to now.” 

There’s a quiet pride in his voice, a pride at himself, that only gets stronger as he continues, “I’ve been prepared for a long time to get hurt, even to die, doing what’s right. A doctor does that for their patients, in and out of the walls of a hospital--” 

“I hope you know I’ll kill you if you try to--” He reaches out for Kyle again, another quick, abortive movement, but this time Kyle grabs his wrist and holds him down, sliding their fingers together.

“--Extreme situations happen, and you’re the person with the tools to do something about it, and sometimes that gets you hurt. So it isn’t that. It’s just--it’s the chain reaction, you know?”

No, he doesn’t know. But suddenly he finds, for the first time since he came flying in, hanging above a panic attack by the thinnest of threads, Kyle looking back at him, his eyes soft and dark, his generous mouth smiling slightly. It’s such a look of fondness that Michael doesn’t know how to handle it. All the feelings, all the words, slip through his fingers like sand. Kyle holds the bottle of whiskey out to him, and he takes it just to put his lips where Kyle’s just were.

Kyle continues, “I _want _to be Mr. Proper Procedure. Bending the rules to help Isobel when she was dying, that’s one thing. But freelancing as a physician for her, Max, and you, without proper charting or any idea how the smallest procedure could react--I mean, have you ever even had an x-ray? What if every single pill created by human hands has no effect on you whatsoever, but an x-ray literally turns you inside out? It’s the uncertainty that kills me--all those little, linked uncertainties. I just got a reminder of that today. It quite literally blew up in my face. It was a tiny thing, not even glowing, not making any noise, not giving off heat--I should have been able to move it like any other test tube. But it turns out it didn’t work like that. What if, next time, it’s you?”

At those last words, Kyle goes to take the bottle back, but Michael holds on tight so their hands meet around the glass; then Michael uses that grip to tug him in for a kiss, and that tastes like whiskey too. He moves in closer, drives in deeper, seeking something under the drink, something warmer, something human. And Kyle opens up for him, tilting his head to give Michael better access, moving the hand that was bracing his weight on the bed to cup the back of Michael’s neck. Letting Michael be the one that’s holding him up, even just for a second.

Kyle pulls back, but doesn’t pull away. He sighs, low and soothed, and Michael swallows--there’s something inside him that wants to shout or break something--because no matter what Kyle says, it’s an irrefutable fact that they’d _all _be safer without Michael in their lives. They would be. It doesn’t make it any easier, to hear Kyle worrying about _him_ while sitting right beside a tray of glass and bandages covered in Kyle’s blood. It’s sick, almost, to see Kyle relax against him so soon after being in that unknown danger, a danger that never would have been a part of his life if not for aliens.

It would be simple to shift the blame. Whatever lurks inside Project Shepherd’s filing cabinets was probably put there long before Michael and his siblings hatched. Hell, it was probably a result of some horrible fucking experiment done on Michael’s family by Kyle’s or Alex’s. And because of the Manes-Valenti family legacy, there’s every ounce of chance both Michael’s lovers would have wound up neck-deep in conspiracy and peril even if Michael’d died of exposure that night he, Max, and Isobel wandered out into the world. 

But it isn’t that simple. It can’t be. Michael trails his hand from the small of Kyle’s back up to his wrapped shoulder and back down again, and he knows. He was on--in his own words--that same doomed ride, that intergalactic Titanic. It’s all just this--this fucked-up Mobius strip, this infinitely recursive logical carousel--they, the aliens, his family, they only came here in search of sanctuary, in search of a better life. It’s down to bigotry, Michael knows, he _does, _that Jesse Manes and generations of Manes men before him convinced themselves they were on the right side of history by torturing and desecrating innocent lives.

But sometimes, he’s an alien, and people get hurt, and there’s this voice in the back of his head. It keeps him up at night every now and then wondering if Alex and Kyle hear it too.

“I don’t blame you,” Kyle repeats, and Michael’s eyes flick down across his body, searching for any stray handprints that might have shown up to get Valenti reading his mind.

“I can see it in your face,” Kyle says. “I...I didn’t actually want to tell you any of that, frankly. But it’s time to practice what I preach on the communication thing, yeah?”

Michael actually manages a laugh, or near enough. “You’re just gunning for a better birthday present.”

“Literally anything will be better than the Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card you got me for Valentine’s Day.”

“I just wanted to celebrate your emergence from your chrysalis! You’re fully formed now--a fan of goods, sports, _and _dick....”

Kyle shoves at his face to shut him up, and Michael falls down to the bed, laughing for real this time.

“You’re stymying my creativity,” he warns. “If you keep shutting me down like this, all you’re getting for your birthday is a blowjob.”

“I happen to know—and I’ve got references—that blowjobs are the outlet for at least 37% of your creativity.”

“Mmm, all an artist asks is the appreciation due his art…”

Still grinning, Michael starts inching his fingers toward the button of Kyle’s jeans, only to get swatted away. He pouts as Kyle gets to his feet and carefully takes the bloody tray in hand.

“At least let me deal with my own biohazard before you start getting frisky,” Kyle drawls, tugging away from Michael’s grabbing hands, and tugging away with slightly less success from Michael’s mental tugging on the hem of his shirt.

“But Valenti,” Michael whines, “I just want to have tender, frantic, life-affirming sex with you—”

“You can use me for my body later, when I’m not in pieces about the death of my professional integrity.” He gestures vaguely with his tray, and Michael lets him go, but then he stops in the doorway again.

“Valenti?”

“Would you—talk to Alex for me? I think he’s really…”

“Not okay.”

“Yeah.”

Michael levers himself off the bed in turn, meeting Kyle under the doorframe, where they have to stand nearly chest-to-chest. Laying his hands on either side of Kyle’s face, bending down ever so slightly, he kisses him, long and lingering, sucking slowly on Kyle’s lower lip until his mouth parts on a soundless moan, until they’re swaying dangerously together. Even when they part, Michael pushes his forehead against Kyle’s and breathes him deeply in.

“Come join us when you’re ready,” he says, and goes to find his other boyfriend.

* * *

At the sound of Michael’s boots on old, creaky wood of the porch, Alex starts like coming out of a trance, and Michael is glad to know him, and is glad to know himself. It still aches, watching his shuttered face, not knowing how to make it better, and knowing he’s the equal opposite reaction to all that placid volatility. It aches on either side of his heart: the evidence of Alex’s guilt and the reliable thudding bruise of his own.

Still, Michael is glad to know him, glad to be here until Alex has the words sorted, until Alex is ready for him to hear them.

“All right?” is all he says, soft and rasping.

In response, Alex hauls himself off the rocking chair and crosses to the railing, leaning hard against it. He looks every inch the soldier in that moment, lined in gold by the setting sun, shoulders straight and mouth set in a firm, fine line. Even bracing himself against the wood, his posture is perfect, his presence commanding and overwhelming, and another piece of Michael’s puzzle clicks home, settling a bit in his stomach. 

Eyes trained on the violet-smudged horizon, Alex says, “It’s hard, isn’t it? Knowing when to blame yourself, and how much.”

Michael snorts and takes another couple steps, closing the door behind him. “Is that hard for us? Seems like that’s been the easiest part of this whole thing.” He closes the last of the distance between them so they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder, so he could press their sides together at the slightest hint of permission.

“When it’s _appropriate _to blame yourself. Ourselves,” Alex replies.

“You’re asking me to be _appropriate _now?” Michael affects a loud, scandalized gasp and presses his hand over his heart. “Mr. Manes, I _never._”

Alex doesn’t laugh, not quite, but he does huff out the breath he’s been holding and knock his shoulder into Michael’s. There’s no humor there, not really, but at the very least Michael’s succeeded in cutting the line of tension keeping him so stiff.

Alex says, “I know--I know that this was a tiny thing, in the end. If I let every accident paralyze me because of how bad the consequences _could _have been, I would be dead about five times over.”

Michael knocks him back at that, an instinctive response to the cold rush that takes him over at the thought of how many times, how many ways, Alex could have been killed while he was a world away. It always makes him want to cling, to grab on and not let go, but Alex is trying to talk to him and historically Michael’s instinct for physicality leads to using their mouths for other things. So he settles just for nudging their shoulders together, bumping himself into Alex’s sphere, and retreating again. Alex doesn’t let him get far, though; it’s a surprise, warm and welcome, when Alex slips his hand into the front pocket of Michael’s jeans to keep him close. Shuffling closer as Alex reels him in, he finally does what he’s been wanting to do and curves himself, comma-like, into the solid frame of Alex right beside him.

“Kyle told me what happened,” he says, resting his chin on Alex’s shoulder, wrapping his arm around his middle. 

“Hmm.” Alex hums in acknowledgment, taking a moment just to lean his head against Michaels, and then he continues, “The flask wasn’t properly preserved, especially since whoever put it in that box in the first place couldn’t have had any more of an idea what it was than we do. And Kyle could as easily have been the one to touch it as I was.”

“Sounds like it, yeah. Call me kettle, but I don’t think there’s much you should be blaming yourself for this time around.”

“No, I shouldn’t be. But all these ideas have been running through my head, every recrimination, every practical behavioral change for the future. What could have been done to mitigate the risks?” His eyes drift back to the horizon, staring into the middle distance as he lists off by rote: “We could have been more careful sticking our hands in there; we could wear more safety gear--goggles, respirators, the works--every time we come across a box. We could stop processing them altogether until you’ve separated out all the materials with your powers, so none of us come in contact with anything potentially dangerous. But none of those will change what happened--that I made something explode, and Kyle got hurt.”

“He’s going to be fine. And he has us to spoil him rotten while he gets better, yeah? He’ll be insufferable by the time we’re done with him.”

It’s easier to reassure Alex than it is himself. 

“He cried out, more from surprise than pain, I think--and no amount of experience or pragmatism will make me forget that sound. This is the first time I’ve actually been there--to see him get hurt. And part of me wants to blame myself for that, too.” A cold flicker of a smile crosses Alex’s face, and in a quick, weak gesture Michael crowds closer and presses his nose into Alex’s temple so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore. “Wouldn’t it be better if I took care of Project Shepherd on my own from here on out? Mitigate risk of further injury to anyone but myself? That’s what my instincts are telling me, but I don’t know. I’m compromised. But wouldn’t it be better--safer--if Kyle didn’t come in contact with my family’s legacy anymore?”

The thought is so similar, so perfectly a reflection of Michael’s own twisting, maze-like thoughts, half acceptance of the danger they’re all in, half guilt that he can’t fix it, that he can’t hide anymore in the safe space tucked right up against him. He pulls back so he can look at Alex in full profile once more--the early evening shadow across his dramatic brow, his cheekbones, the regal slope of his nose.

The hardest thing of all, Michael wants to say with the last rays of sunlight hitting him dead in the eye, is letting yourself love someone when you know you can’t protect them and when you know you’re going to try anyway, and most likely fail. Michael couldn’t save Isobel from Noah, not even when he thought he was just trying to save her from herself. He couldn’t save Max from himself, either. He couldn’t even keep Alex from going to war, again and again, whether or not Roswell would have been any safer for him. And, aching in his bones, he wanted to stop. Every time, he wanted to stop trying, wanted to stop loving, wanted to stop being the person who failed--but he never did, because he could never be anything but himself. 

And that’s the problem he runs into now, wanting to say what he does, because it’s a thing of his that he speaks in these broad, sweeping--cosmic--statements, and people don’t always hear them the way he means. And for all his jokes, he really is trying to do better, he really does listen when Kyle lectures about communication--so how better, then, to word it?

The hum of the cicadas drones all around them in lieu of silence, as Michael searches for the words. There’s no true silence in the summer twilight, and there’s something comforting about that, something honest. The wind picks up, and Michael sucks it down, breathes it back out slowly, and blinks the dust out of his eyes. 

“I’ve been thinking too,” he offers. “‘Bout legacies and all that. And been feeling guilty. Alien shit does that, sometimes. Gets us all twisted up.”

The hand still in Michael’s pocket clenches compulsively and jerks him that last centimeter closer, so their thighs are pressed together, rubbing with every infinitesimal shift of their bodies, through two layers of denim. For good measure, Michael hooks his foot around Alex’s prosthetic, twining them all together.

“We can flip a coin for it if you want,” is all Alex says, even though his eyes flash pale purple starlight like he’s got a hundred arguments for Michael’s exoneration just behind his teeth. It’s a fair compromise he’s offering, since it’s too much to hope they’re ever going to get rid of the guilt entirely. Michael wants to be that generous; wishes he had a counter-offer on deck, but all he’s got is this.

“Nah,” Michael drawls. “I think, this time, we split it. If we gang up on Valenti, we can pamper the fuck out of him and he won’t even know what hit him. His face oughtta be a good enough distraction.”

“He might resent that a bit, you know.”

“You telling me you don’t want to see Valenti get double teamed?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Michael and Alex turn at once at the sound of Kyle’s voice in the doorway. He’s changed his clothes, into a pair of Michael’s sweats and one of his own ubiquitous tight shirts, and the look does things to Michael he oughtta be ashamed of. He grins real slow and scans his eyes up and down every inch of Kyle’s body just to see a little redness dust across those high cheekbones, even as Kyle doesn’t dignify him with any response other than a roll of his eyes.

“Guerin is causing trouble again,” Alex says, and though his attention has turned to Kyle, he trails a path oh-so-gently from the base of Michael’s skull to the nape of his neck, making goosebumps flush over Michael’s skin in slow, washing waves.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m a pistol,” Michael replies, smugly, the last burrs of worry soothed out of him by seeing Kyle back on his feet.

“You guys have been out here a while. Everything okay?”

Alex scratches lightly at the fine hair right at Michael’s neck, and Michael is happy to hold perfectly still, holding Alex’s gaze while his dark eyes do a quick search of his face.

Finally, Alex smiles, and, as he rolls one tiny curl around the tip of his index finger, he says, “We’re getting there.”

**Author's Note:**

> for fraudulentzodiacs, who deserves everything


End file.
